"Now, you shall go and have a good time in my garden. Do you know where my house is?" "Yes, I know. Not far from the Church of Our Lady." "Right, my son, you have found it. It has green blinds, and a fig-tree stands in front of it. Now take this basket and carry it to Auntie, and say that I sent word that she was to let you go into the garden with my son Toros. There you two may eat what you will." He handed me a neat-looking basket. I peeped into it and saw a sheep's liver. I was as disgusted with this as though it were a dead dog, for at that time liver-eaters were abhorred not less than thieves and counterfeiters; they with their whole family were held in derision, and people generally refused to associate with them. In a moment I forgot entirely what a good man Sarkis was; I forgot his fruit-garden and his pretty daughter, of whom the good old lady had told me so many beautiful things. The liver had spoiled everything in a trice. Sarkis noticed this, and asked me smiling: "What is the matter?" "Have you a dog in your yard?" I asked, without heeding his words. "No," he said. "For whom, then, is the liver?" "For none other than ourselves. We will eat it." I looked at Sarkis to see if he were jesting with me, but no sign of jesting was to be seen in his face. "You will really eat the liver yourselves?" I asked. "What astonishes you, my boy? Is not liver to be eaten, then?" "Dogs eat liver," I said, deeply wounded, and turned away, for Sarkis appeared to me at that moment like a ghoul. Just then there came into the store a pretty, pleasing boy. "Mamma sent me to get what you have bought at the Bazaar, and the hearth-fire has been lit a long time." I concluded that this was Sarkis's son, Toros. I perceived immediately from his face that he was a good boy, and I was very much taken with him. "Here, little son, take that," Sarkis said, and handed him the basket which I had set down. Toros peeped in, and when he spied the liver he said, "We will have a pie for dinner." Then he put on his cap and turned to go. "Toros," called his father to him, "take Melkon with you to our house and play with him as a brother." I was exceedingly pleased with the invitation, and went out with Toros. When we arrived at Sarkis's house and entered the garden it seemed as though I were in an entirely new world. The yard was very pretty, no disorder was to be seen anywhere. Here and there pretty chickens, geese, and turkeys ran about with their chicks. On the roof sat doves of the best kinds. The yard was shaded in places by pretty green trees, the house had a pretty balcony, and under the eaves stood green-painted tubs for catching rain-water. In the windows different flowers were growing, and from the balcony hung cages of goldfinches, nightingales, and canary birds; in a word, everything I saw was pretty, homelike, and pleasant.